07/28/2026
My father named his photography business after me before I understood what a camera was. I was eight years old. It took me forty years to notice.
JO-MAL. Joseph and Malcolm. Printed on a card out of Arcadia, Louisiana, under a tagline he lifted from a western he loved. Have Gun, Will Travel became Have Camera, Will Travel.
Here is the thing about it, Joseph E. Williams was already an artist. Professional jazz musician, upright bass and piano. I used to watch his fingers when he played. Strong, callused from years on those strings. Thinking back, this was one of the first things I ever understood about doing something long enough to be changed by it. Practice and repetition matter.
So the camera was like a second language to him. One he knew, but at the same time, one that one stayed aspirational. A few jobs here and there. He shot a lot of high school and college sports. That card that was always running ahead of the business.
I went the other way. Started a lawn service at 15 in high school. Biology at Hampton University, thought about heading for medical school. A near-death year at 21 that rearranged what I thought I owed anybody. Birthed a t-shirt company called Thirdeye Apparel. Then 18 years, a VP title, and a salary I mistook for a destination.
Joe E. passed in 2017. Somewhere inside that loss the math changed for me. One calling he lived out loud, one he never got to finish.
I found the card a few years ago and remembered the tagline instantly. What I DID NOT remember was the name. Jo-Mal. Half of it had been mine the entire time. The Universe always knows.
My spiritual counselor told me not long ago that I am the realization of my father’s unrealized potential. I think about that every time I raise a camera.
Every portrait I make is somebody deciding to be seen. That was his instinct in a small Louisiana town with a Canon AE1 camera and a phone number. It is mine in Brooklyn with a client in front of me.
Have camera, will travel. Still true.
If you are standing in front of your own next chapter, let’s document the version of you that already decided. Link in bio.
